It is known to provide an apparatus for setting paving blocks on a prepared surface to provide a pavement. Examples of these are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,320,985; 4,583,879 and 4,264,232. Most of the known apparatuses utilize clamps for picking up and transporting a unit of paving blocks wherein the unit is clamped from opposed side end edges thereof to press the blocks together with sufficient force whereby the blocks in a unit are held by friction. However, because these paving blocks are sometimes irregular, it is possible that a block could fall out of the unit of blocks during transport or by the motion created by a hoist which engages and displaces the clamping assembly. If one of the paving blocks falls out of the unit, then adjacent blocks are susceptible to also fall out and the entire unit is therefore damaged and needs to be reformatted. This is labour intensive and costly and causes damage to the paving blocks and is also hazardous to the installation personnel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,232 discloses a clamping assembly wherein adjacent rows of paving blocks in a unit of paving blocks are displaced offset from adjacent rows of blocks by the use of clamps which engage each row of blocks in the unit. These clamps are provided with rollers at the ends of the rows to apply the clamping pressure. Rollers are usually unstable and if the unit of blocks is fairly large, there is again the risk that some of the blocks in between the clamps will fall out. Such an arrangement is therefore unreliable and has not been commercialized for this reason. Also, the method of installation comprises several steps in that the unit of paving blocks is first clamped together laterally with a collecting clamp and each row of bricks is individually clamped in their desired position at their longitudinal ends in a further step. The clamps with the clamp rows of bricks are displaced with respect to each other in a parallel direction when the collecting clamp is released and the collecting clamp is again engaged after the rows have been offset in alternating sequence. Such an arrangement of bricks is difficult to install on a prepared surface bed as the paving blocks need to be fitted into space cavities or openings created at the ends of adjacent rows of blocks already installed.